Editing Southwark (section)

====Natural setting====
Until relatively recent times, the Thames in central London was much wider and shallower at high tide. The natural shoreline of the City Of London was a short distance further back than it is now, and the high tide shoreline on the Southwark side was much further back, except for the area around London Bridge.

Southwark was mostly made up of a series of often marshy tidal islands in the Thames, with some of the waterways between these island formed by branches of the [[River Neckinger]], a tributary of the Thames. A narrow strip of higher firmer ground ran on a N-S alignment and, even at high tide, provided a much narrower stretch of water, enabling the Romans to bridge the river.

As the lowest bridging point of the Thames in [[Roman Britain]], it determined the position of [[Londinium]]; without London Bridge there is unlikely to have been a settlement of any importance in the area; previously the main crossing had been a ford near [[Vauxhall Bridge]]. Because of the bridge and the establishment of London, the Romans routed two [[Roman road]]s into Southwark: [[Stane Street (Chichester)|Stane Street]] and [[Watling Street]] which met in what in what is now [[Borough High Street]].

For centuries London Bridge was the only Thames bridge in the area, until a bridge was built upstream more than {{convert|10|miles|km}} to the west.{{NoteTag|Namely [[Kingston Bridge, London]] from at least 1190s until the building of closer bridges since, starting with Putney Bridge in 1729.}}